


Mutual Aid

by regencysnuffboxes (malicegeres)



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Anarchy, Antifa AU, Blood and Violence, Communism, Comrade Crowley, Fluff and Angst, Gonna Keep the Tone Pretty Light TBH, I'm Not Sure What Other Metadata Is Useful Here LMK, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nazis, Podfic Welcome, Police Brutality, That said lol..., drug mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2019-08-22 05:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16591985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malicegeres/pseuds/regencysnuffboxes
Summary: "Let's at least get you cleaned up and out of those clothes so you don’t look completely suspicious. Three arrowsanda black and red flag patch on your jacket? Really, my dear."Ezra Fell is running a struggling radical bookshop in a rapidly gentrifying Soho. Crowley is a member of an anarchist group fighting the rising tide of fascism in their corner of the world. When Crowley is injured by skinheads at a protest gone horribly wrong, Ezra takes him in and hides him from police. When Crowley learns the bookshop is about to be sold to developers, he and Ezra hatch a plan to save it and learn the power of solidarity, mutual aid, and love while living under late capitalism.100% based on the Comrade Crowley meme I forced on the whole of Tumblr.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: I don't have a background in medicine and if the FBI wants to investigate me, I hold this mess of a fanfic up as proof that I have never been a member of antifa because I'm sure I'm getting everything wrong. I am also an American. You have been warned.
> 
> CW: Violence, blood, Nazis. Please let me know if I need to add any other warnings!

 

 

 

It had been a reasonably quiet day at The Collective Radical Books. Ezra didn’t expect much on a Wednesday, really, and if he was completely honest with himself he was always disappointed to see a customer come in. Especially when they insisted on talking to him. But, then, it was a radical leftist bookstore he was running, and it was his job to make radical leftist thought accessible to the public. Even if he didn't particularly care for that public.

He was about to go over and see if the two university students giggling at the front zine display had any questions when the bell over the door tinkled.

Gabriel flashed him a white-toothed smile. “Ezra! Got a minute?”

The feigned friendly expression he’d been wearing curdled into a hard stare. He gestured to the undergraduates and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Not at the moment, bit busy trying to make money so that you can continue to profit off of my existing in this building while you sit on your arse and get rich.”

“Okay, when you’re done with them,” said Gabriel without a single crack in his cheerful expression. Gabriel claimed he'd been born in Surrey, but he'd been raised in Illinois and was for all intents and purposes an American. Ezra didn't trust Americans. There was something about their energy, their noise, their inexhaustible cheeriness that put his stiff English spirit on edge.

Besides, when his landlord was happy it generally wasn't good news for him.

His customers each left with a copy of a zine about Sailor Moon and gender expression, and when the door shut behind them he turned the “open” sign in the window to “closed” and sighed. “What is it, Gabriel?”

Gabriel looked up from the chair in the corner where he’d been reading Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. He shut the book and resumed that smug, perfect smile. “How’s business?”

Ezra stood up to his full height, which was quite high but not higher than Gabriel. “Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all!” he replied, standing and walking over to the door. He slapped Ezra on the shoulder. “In fact, I have an opportunity for you, of you’re willing to hear me out.”

He quirked an eyebrow, willing an aura of doubt about his entire person.

“I’ve been in talks with some people who might be interested in investing in our little corner of Soho. They think this location has the potential to really revitalize the community. And, well, I was wondering if you maybe wanted a piece of that.”

A dull horror hit the well of Ezra’s stomach. “You’re selling to a developer.”

Finally, the smile faltered. Gabriel schooled his expression into something more humble and sympathetic. “Times are changing, Mr. Fell. I have other investments that are a lot more profitable than this place is, and these people have the funds to really make something good and new out of it.”

“I suppose if I don’t take your money you’ll simply evict me,” Ezra spat.

He sighed. “Look, I know this shop means a lot to you. I didn’t know Naomi, and I barely got to know Ruth before she passed-“

Ezra slammed his palm loudly against the wall, teeth clenched.

Gabriel, seeing that he'd hit a nerve, gave him an apologetic pat on the shoulder. “I’ll send you a formal offer via email so you have it in writing. Just… think it over, Ezra, okay?”

Not daring to let himself speak, he stood to the side and let his landlord pass. Then he locked the door behind him, sat at the old wooden desk where he kept the register, and stared out into the shop. Whatever happened next, this wasn't going to be it.

—

Well, that one went down like a lead balloon, Crowley thought as he narrowly avoided a cloud of tear gas.

Police had beat a boy in Walthamstow to death, and when the Humble Echelon for the Liberation of London (HELL) caught wind that there was going to be a protest in Trafalgar Square at seven o'clock that night they thought they’d better go and make sure the police didn't add to their body count.

Things had been going so smoothly. Turnout for the rally was high, the speakers were inspiring, the chants and songs relatively in sync for a crowd of that size. Then the Nazis showed up. 1

HELL weren’t the sort to be violent in a way that might bait police at a protest mostly made up of people of color. That said, once the Nazis started throwing rocks and shouting slurs and it became clear the pigs weren’t about to step in to serve or protect anyone, they had no choice but to step in. While a good chunk of HELL went to fight off the Nazi threat, Crowley and a few others including his friend Anathema got to work herding the crowd toward Chinatown.

They’d managed to get most of them out when Crowley saw a tall, thin skinhead about to jump Anathema. He ran over and shoved him to the side, taking extra care to dig the bony bit of his shoulder into the skinhead’s ribs.

The skinhead shouted as the force of Crowley’s blow pushed him back. He stumbled, steadied himself, and immediately launched himself at Crowley.

Crowley turned to dodge, but when he did his jaw ran into the fist of a much shorter Nazi, his lip splitting as the knuckles made contact. He immediately reared back and went to punch the little man in kind, but a long arm stretched around his neck and pulled him into a choke hold. Crowley elbowed the tall Nazi in the stomach, but he didn't let loose. He punched Crowley's face twice: once against his temple, knocking off his sunglasses with a twitch of his finger before he pulled back; and once right into his eye. Crowley bit his tongue, refusing to cry out in pain. He suddenly felt the sensation that he had just been hit again and realized he’d blacked out for a second.

"Get the fuck off him!" Crowley heard someone shout. He looked up and saw Anathema, cricket bat primed to swing. Half her face was obscured by a robin’s egg blue bandanna, but her eyes were aflame with fury you could spot a mile away.

The tall skinhead looked from Anathema to his shorter friend. "Ligur," he said, "take care of her. I'll make sure this one dunt get-"

A whistle blew and a middle-aged man in a dayglo jacket and checkered hat pointed a gun loaded with rubber bullets at Anathema. "Drop your weapon. You're all under arrest."

Without hesitating, Crowley stomped on the tall Nazi’s foot while he was distracted. His head was swimming and he was only half sure of what was happening, but he could see Anathema slowly lowering her bat to the ground and he took a wobbly step forward.

Anathema met his eyes and gestured toward Chinatown with her head. Get out of here.

The cop had his eyes on Anathema and her bat, Crowley realized, and the skinheads were already disappearing into the crowd. Slowly, Crowley bent down and picked up a discarded picket sign beside him. He grabbed it up by the bit of the shaft touching the sign itself, held it upside down, and swung it at the cop's head.

The second it made impact, he broke into a sprint. When heard the cop shout after him and give chase he smiled behind his bandanna, knowing Anathema was probably in the clear since the cop hadn't called backup.

His smile immediately faded when he heard a loud pop and felt a sharp pain in his upper left arm. He stumbled, nearly falling to the ground, but he grit his teeth and ran faster. Trafalgar fell away to Wardour street, and he got about five minutes down the road at a steady run before he heard police sirens. Cursing under his breath, he broke into a sprint again, keeping on down Wardour until a turn felt right. He turned left, and then left again into a dead-end street.

Most of the street was backs of shops on the main roads, but there was light coming out the windows of the bookshop tucked into the corner. Crowley was dizzy and barely certain where he was, but he saw a rainbow flag and a red flag emblazoned with a white fist hanging on either side of the door and knew he’d be safe. He ran to it and gave five forceful knocks to the door.

He waited.

Then he pounded on it louder, shouting, “Please, I need help!”

The door opened slowly and a tall, plump, middle-aged man in wire spectacles, a lumpy sleeveless jumper, khakis, and hideous white trainers peered out at him and squinted.

Crowley pulled down his bandanna, wincing as he realized his lip had started to scab against it. He stared at the man with pleading eyes. 2

The man opened the door wider and stood to the side. “Come in. Quickly, now, before someone sees you.”

He stumbled inside, collapsing against a display of zines as soon as the door was locked behind them. “Thanks,” he said, grateful it had worked. 3

“I’ll get some ice,” the man muttered, scrambling toward the back of the shop.

Crowley closed his eyes and breathed, feeling the world spin around him. Pain began to set in as the adrenaline started leaving his system.

He heard the man set something down next to him. “Let’s have a look,” he said softly.

Crowley opened his eyes—well, eye and a half—and sat up, wincing as the movement troubled his rapidly bruising abdomen.

“Oh dear,” he said, and he handed Crowley a package of frozen peas loosely wrapped in a dish towel. “Put this on your eye.” He clucked his tongue and handed Crowley a cool, damp cloth around a single ice cube. “Hold this to your lip. You’re still bleeding.”

“Sorry for the loss of your cloth,” Crowley slurred.

“What happened? Were you at Trafalgar?”

“Yeah. Bunch of… skinheads… showed up…”

The man knit his brows together. “Are you alright?”

“Ngk. Prolly concussed. S’fine, wouldn’t be the first time.”

To Crowley’s surprise, the gentle concern on the man’s face was swept away by a wave of irritation. “That’s worse.” He pulled an old Nokia phone out of his pocket and began to dial a number.

“Wossat?”

“I’m calling you a cab and taking you to hospital.”

“C’mon, mate, let’s not… There's police out looking for me."

The man took a deep breath, casting his eyes skyward as if praying for strength, and grabbed Crowley by his left arm. He dropped it immediately when Crowley yelped, and he looked shocked to discover his hand was now covered in blood. "Good God, what else is wrong with you?"

"They bloody well shot me is what!"

"And they'll likely arrest you if they come to the closest radical bookseller to Trafalgar Square." He held out his hand. "Let's at least get you cleaned up and out of those clothes so you don’t look completely suspicious. Three arrows and a black and red flag patch on your jacket? Really, my dear."

Crowley took the man's hand with his right, putting more of his weight on it than he might have liked as he pulled himself up. "What can I say? I don't like fascists."

—

The injured black bloc fighter was still in the shower when the police finally knocked at the door.

Ezra opened it with his customer service best on his face. "To what do I owe the pleasure, officer?"

The policeman did not return his smile. "Have you seen anyone suspicious tonight?"

"What do you mean by suspicious?" he asked innocently.

"We are in close pursuit of a leftist radical who assaulted a police officer. He was shot in the arm with a non-lethal ballistic, and he ran off in this direction."

'Close pursuit.' That certainly wasn't good news for his new friend. "Well, sir, I haven't seen anyone with a wound from a, er, non-lethal ballistic tonight," he said. After all, rubber bullets had killed plenty of people. As far as Ezra was concerned, there was no such thing as a truly non-lethal ballistic.

The officer looked at the red flag hanging beside the door, and then at Ezra. "I'm going to need to search your property. Close pursuit grants me the right to search you without a warrant, and I think it's reasonable to assume the suspect would come here. I want no funny business from you. Is that clear?"

Ezra's heart raced with fear, but more than afraid he was angry. For the second time that day, he was forced to let some stranger he'd never asked to have in his life decide what happened in the shop Ruth and Naomi had left for him to take care of. And how many times in his teens and early twenties had he helped them shelter runaways, punks, goths, and other denizens of the old Soho from police and other bigots?

The Soho that had been home to those people was nearly gone now; those beautiful, loving women who'd sheltered all those people, sheltered him when he'd had no other place to go, were gone. But he still had his shop, and now he had someone to shelter, too.

He kept his smile firmly in place. "Crystal," he said, "If I could have your name and office?"

"Officer Daniel Jones, Metropolitan Police."

"Very well, Officer Jones," he said. He moved to let him in, and then he paused. "Was it you who fired the gun, Officer?"

"I don't see how that's relevant."

Ezra continued smiling. "Oh, I quite agree, I was just curious. It puts your department in a rather nasty situation, doesn't it? Unless your unit is an AFO unit after all."

Officer Jones's face blanched. "If you're implying I was breaking the law shooting that punk--"

He let his smile grow the slightest bit as it became sincere. "I implied no such thing, Officer Jones. However, your name and the presence of a gun at an ostensibly peaceful protest might implicate you quite badly, mightn't it?"

"I know you're hiding him,” he growled. Just as Gabriel had done, he tried to tower menacingly over Ezra. Unlike Gabriel, however, he was not a particularly big man and he came off looking like a puppy trying to bait an older dog into a fight. He shrunk again. "Really, you're just implicating yourself by not letting me in."

"As I said," Ezra explained slowly, as if talking to a child, "I haven't seen anyone tonight who matches the description you gave of your suspect." Then, at last, he dropped the smile and drew himself to his full height. "Now are you going to come in or not?"

Officer Jones cleared his throat. "No," he said. "Sorry to have bothered you."

Once he'd gone, Ezra made sure to deadbolt the door behind him.

The anti-fascist was waiting for him clad in an oversize dressing gown, his eye now swollen completely shut and his wet, dark hair sticking to his forehead.

He was clapping slowly and grinning from ear to ear. "Nicely handled," he said.

Ezra rolled his eyes. "Do go back upstairs. That head of yours needs rest, and rubber bullets are prone to infection so we'll have to take you to hospital tomorrow so someone can take it out."

He blinked rapidly in surprise. "You're taking me?"

"It's my shop you came to, my dear boy," said Ezra. "It's how we've always done things here."

"Right," he said, bewildered. "Well, thanks." He stepped forward and held out his good hand. "I'm Anthony Crowley. Most people just call me Crowley."

He took it firmly and shook. It was a thin, bony hand, but he was surprised by how warm it was. "Ezra Fell."

Crowley smiled. "Glad to have you for a guardian angel, Mr. Fell."

—

1 Well, the people who openly called themselves Nazis. As far as every member of HELL was concerned, all cops were bastards and all cops were Nazis.

2 Crowley was a good-looking young man with soulful, expressive eyes. Most of the time this annoyed the hell out of him, but he found it rather useful for situations like this.

3 It is important to note that the above was not an example of endnote 2 in action. Crowley was stinking with sweat, covered in his own blood, bruised, and swollen in a way that made him look less like a dashing, tragic antihero and more like a feral cat who’d just lost a dumpster fight. Later, when Crowley realized Ezra had taken him in out of pity, he didn’t shut up about how insulted he was for a week.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Pour me 'nother one. I want to toast Comrade Chickens. Comrades Chicken? Wossa collective of comrades?"_
> 
>  
> 
> _Ezra pursed his lips, and then he raised his eyebrows. “A revolution?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for alcohol, mentions of AIDS, and implied homophobic parents.

Crowley had texted Anathema the night before and she’d insisted on being the one to take Crowley to hospital after all. Ezra had said his goodbyes and Crowley went on his way without much ceremony. They checked out his head (which was concussed but not in any real danger) and they dug the rubber pellet out of his arm (which now rested in a sling.)

He‘d called in sick to work. His injured arm was also his dominant one, and there was nothing about his telemarketing job that would be conducive to healing a brain injury. [1] Anathema did have work, so he was alone and possibly the most bored he'd ever been in his life. He tried watching television, he tried reading books, he tried listening to music, and at one point he found himself cycling through Vine compilations. Nothing engaged him enough to shake his restless feeling.

And so Anthony Crowley donned a pair of sunglasses to hide his black eye and left his flat to wander the streets of London.

This happened more than he liked to admit. There was nothing wrong with a good, long walk, but he did it at least once a week and more often than not his reasons for it dipped a lot further into brooding territory than he liked to go. He liked the idea of seeming like the brooding sort, but actually feeling the feelings that might cause one to brood just made him feel like a wet blanket.

He spaced out at some point on his street in Clapham, and for the next hour he walked until he found himself on the shores of the duck pond at St. James’ Park. His head had just jerked around because someone had called his name.

It was the bookshop owner who'd helped him out the other night. He started, surprised to see a familiar face.

Ezra’s friendly expression faded and his brow furrowed. “Are you quite alright?”

“Yeah,” said Crowley automatically. For a moment he worried that he’d blacked out entirely, but once he realized he could recall crossing the Chelsea Bridge and following the tourist signs to the park he relaxed a little. He hadn’t blacked out, he’d just zoned out the way he’d intended to do in the first place.

Ezra looked skeptical. “Should you be out and about?”

“I was told not to do anything too mentally rigorous,” he said with a shrug. “Nobody said anything about walks.” Then he looked at Ezra’s hands and snorted. “Feeding ducks there, Nan?”

Ezra tore off a chunk of crusty sourdough and tossed it into the pond. He was wearing khakis, a camel-colored zip-up knit jumper, and the ugliest white trainers a person could find on the TK Maxx clearance rack. He was pulling it off, somehow, but the only reason Crowley could figure for that was the powerful aura he projected of not giving a shit how he looked. It wasn’t in an old man sort of way, either—Ezra couldn’t have been more than forty. He was just living his life and didn’t give care what anyone thought about him.

Crowley [2] was intrigued.

“If you must know,” said Ezra haughtily, “it’s a tradition of mine. And I find it quite soothing.” He tore the bread in half and offered some of it wordlessly to him.

He took it, holding the bread in his bad hand and tearing a bit off with his right. He tossed it into the water and watched the ducks flock toward it. Those who gave up on getting a bite looked at him expectantly. He tossed another, and because his aim was off it bounced off of one of the ducks’ heads. It shook its bill irritably and went after the bread.

It was pleasant enough, but he didn’t know if he’d go out of his way for it. What an odd person. “What’s the tradition?”

“It’s just something I used to do with my predecessors at the shop. If you needed to talk or think, you took some stale bread and fed the ducks.”

“Oh,” said Crowley, smiling. “I usually just drink for that.”

“It does generally transition into drinking,” Ezra admitted. He looked at him. “It’s cloudy out. How bad is your eye?”

He tilted his shades up and showed him.

Ezra winced. “I don’t know how you antifa types go and do that to yourselves all the time.”

“Okay, it's not all the time; most of our work happens off the streets. And we don’t do it to ourselves,” he scoffed. “The fascists do it to us. That’s why we’re, you know, anti-fascist.”

“It just seems like an awful lot of trouble, and then you go smashing windows-“

“Don’t you run a leftist bookshop?” Crowley interrupted.

Ezra held up his nose. “There are many leftist schools of thought, my dear boy. Yours isn’t the only one.”

Crowley tossed a piece of bread and laughed. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

“You’re a bloody social democrat, aren’t you?”

Now it was Ezra’s turn to scoff. “A democratic socialist, thank you very much. Just because I’m not a communist doesn’t mean I’m a capitalist.”

“Yeah, but you’re still a statist. You, liberals, and the goddamned tankies.”

“Being open to the idea of nonviolent revolution through existing democratic structures doesn’t put me anywhere near the same category as Joseph Stalin.”

“‘Non-violent revolution’ enforced through state violence-“ he began, jabbing his finger in Ezra's direction, but then stopped himself. “Sod this,” he said, tossing the rest of his bread into the pond and walking away.

“Are you being serious? Where are you going?” Ezra demanded petulantly.

Crowley stopped and look back. “You said duck feeding transitions into drinking, didn't you? I’m keeping up your tradition.”

—

[1] If it was possible to wear out a pirated MP4 file, Crowley would have worn out his copy of _Sorry to Bother You_. He hadn’t convinced any of his colleagues to unionize yet, but one day on a whim he traded his working class London accent for the blistering confidence of a public school-educated toff and, to his horror, he made the most sales of anyone that day.

[2] A man who had changed his outfit three times for a solo walk to clear his head.

—

Ezra couldn’t afford many of the finer things in life, but he’d always felt that good wine made toiling under capitalism worth his while and so he always had money set aside for it. [3] He tended to save his best for special occasions or rainy days, but his lately his shop had been pouring with visits from Gabriel so he was down to his last four bottles.

Well, two and a quarter, now.

Ezra nearly spilled his glass onto the old, worn down sofa in the back room of the shop as he shouted, "But what about spices?" in an increasingly prominent rural West Midlands accent.

"Eh?" asked Crowley. He was sinking ever lower against the opposite armrest, his feet tucked against the middle of the cushions. His boots, jacket, and sunglasses lay abandoned on the coffee table. The nonchalance might have been attractive if it weren’t for the sling and the ghastly bruises over his eye.

He crossed his arms. "Well, that was what trade was for, wasn't it? You can't have spices if you don’t had trade."

" _England_ can't have spices without trade," Crowley corrected him, swirling his wine glass idly. "Not that England's using them now. And, anyhow, who said we can't… I dunno, barter? ‘Here's all the chickens on the commune, now give us your cinnamon.’" He took a generous sip from his glass.

Ezra made a face. " _All_ the chickens? That doesn't seem like a fair trade. Chickens… They make eggs, my dear boy. S'a renewable resource."

"Alright, not _all_ the chickens. I'm not literally saying all the chickens. I jus' figure a commune'd have a lot of chickens lying around. Plenty of chickens to go 'round for everyone."

"Have you ever met a chicken?” He uncrossed his arms to better facilitate his gesticulating. “I mean, properly met a chicken."

Crowley blinked up at Ezra. "What, like had a heart to heart with one? I don't-"

"My mum used to keep chickens, you know."

"Tha's… very nice, Ezra. Listen though-"

"Nasty buggers.

"Yeah, I bet, but _listen_ -"

"I've got a scar from one," he said, pointing at a faint mark on one of his hands.

Crowley groaned and shot up to a full sitting position. "Listen to me! M'- whoa." He paused and held his head, closing eyes and taking a moment to steady himself. "M'tryin' to explain the bloody abolition of capi- capli- money. I don't give a toss about your mum's chickens. Chickens haven't got anything to do with the spice trade, they were just an, er…"

"Example," Ezra provided.

"Example, yeah. My point is, under communism if people want to travel the world trading spices, they can just do it. They get to see the world, we get to eat all their spices and probably throw them a big party for bringing them. S'probably a good life, being a communist spice trader."

"…But, see, the thing about my mum's chickens-"

"These chickens had better have unionized against your mum or… or m’leaving."

"No, no. M'just thinking about the miners' strike. I don't remember much, I was quite small, but I remember my mum going door to door and I was with her carrying this great, big basket of eggs to pass out to everyone else in the village. They're good birds, chickens, is my point, even if they are a bunch of feathery little bastards."

"Huh," said Crowley. He seemed to digest this, and then he nodded gravely and finished his glass. "Pour me 'nother one. I want to toast Comrade Chickens. Comrades Chicken? Wossa collective of comrades?"

Ezra pursed his lips, and then he raised his eyebrows. “A revolution?”

Crowley whooped with laughter and kicked Ezra’s thigh playfully with his foot. “Now you’re getting it, comrade! Let’s toast that.”

“No. No more drinking for me. You aren’t even s’posed to be drinking,” he reminded him for what he thought must have been the third time that night. [4]

Crowley looked at the bottle. “Tha’s two good glasses right there. Seems a waste not to finish the bloody thing.”

“Oh, alright,” Ezra sighed, “but I’m getting us waters first.” He got up and stumbled his way into the kitchen. Once he was out Crowley’s sight, he leaned against the wall and let the fizzy swirling of his head rock him back and forth.

It didn’t used to feel strange having people in the back of the shop. He was never the most sociable of people even as a younger man, but he’d had friends and boyfriends who’d come around. And of course, he’d had his chosen family.

He hadn’t thought about the chickens in ages. When he remembered his mother, he usually remembered the fight they had before he ran away to London for good. She must be, what, fifty-seven now? Fifty-eight?

He did the math and realized this shop had been his home for almost twenty-two years.

A wave of anger pushed his body up straight again and he quickly fixed a glass of water each for Crowley and himself. When he got back to the sitting room, he was unsurprised to find the man standing at the wall of photos at the far end of the room. Ezra went to him and silently offered the glass.

Crowley took it without looking away. “Who’s he?” he asked, gesturing with his be-slinged elbow to the photo furthest to the left.

“Oh,” said Ezra. “That’s Mark, the original owner of the Collective. He died of AIDS a bit before my time. I didn’t know him, but they did.” He pointed at another photo, one of Ruth and Naomi smiling on the sofa, back when it was new and they were young. The photo must have been taken in the early 1970’s. He smiled a little.

Crowley looked at Ezra significantly. “They your duck-feeding mates?”

He was surprised to find himself smiling. “Something like that.”

“So what were you thinking about?”

“Hm?”

“With the ducks. You said you did it when you needed to have a think.”

“Oh, nothing. Landlord trouble. He wants to sell the building to developers and I’m trying to find a way to stop him.”

Crowley grinned. “Can I help?”

“You’re not smashing my windows, dear boy,” said Ezra, squinting at him.

“M’not smashing your windows. Who said anything about smashing any windows? I have never smashed a window in my life!” He stopped and furrowed his brow. “I’ve smashed one window in my life, but that’s it. Look, though, I’m serious. Fuck your landlord, right? This place is a piece of queer history or whatever. Let’s take him down.”

“How are we going to do that? We’re just two people.”

Crowley grinned and put his hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “Not if we organize.”

A warmth spread through Ezra’s body at his touch. He looked at the hand, the knuckles of his narrow fingers still sporting scabs and bruises from brawling in the streets.

It occurred to Ezra that he’d never been as bold as that. If he was completely honest with himself, as he only ever was when he was drunk, he’d only become a socialist because it would be ridiculous to work in a leftist bookshop and not be a leftist of some sort. Oh, he’d read all the theory he could and settled on a picture of the world he could comfortably believe in, but he’d never lived his belief the way people like Crowley did. He’d never taken beatings for other people.

He met Crowley’s eyes. Maybe the wine had made him maudlin, but there was something beautiful in the bruises on his face. “Yes,” he said, grinning back. “I think that would about do it.”

Neither one of them moved; Ezra didn’t dare. They looked into each other’s eyes, the gap between them beginning to shrink almost imperceptibly.

Then Crowley gagged and made a run for the toilet.

Ezra made sure Crowley had drunk a full glass of water and texted his flatmate before tucking him into bed in the spare room. [5]

As his head hit the pillow of his own bed, he replayed the night in his head and wondered if Crowley had felt the gap closing, too.

—

[3] One might be tempted to call him a champagne socialist, but that wasn’t fair. He was more a Bourdeaux person.

[4] It was the ninth, but they were both too drunk to remember more than three.

[5] It had been his room and his bed, once, and he couldn’t tell if that was a reassuring thought.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a bridge chapter because I've gotten really caught up in the holidays/work/my social life/actual leftist praxis?? Please enjoy this bite-sized snippet to tide you over.

Because he’d been sick, Crowley didn’t have much of a hangover the next morning. He only had a vague memory of their conversation the night before and was certain he’d only imagined that pull between himself and Ezra. The man certainly didn’t seem into him in _that_ way the next morning. He didn’t meet his eyes when Crowley got up, and while they did have an animated discussion over breakfast the topic didn’t stray from how they could save the shop.

And that was fine, Crowley decided. He didn’t actually care that much. He was just being weird; he was just grateful to Ezra for the rescue and had a bit of fun drinking with him was all. He was absolutely not going to develop a weird crush on an intellectual man pushing middle age who wasn’t interested in him. [1]

They decided to try a soft pitch of their plan to Anathema. HELL was a relatively new group and Crowley was an even more recent recruit, so Anathema was a good start.

They sat her down on the sofa in the back room, Ezra darting out to tend to customers while Crowley kept up the presentation. Eventually, they ran out of things to say.

Anathema has been listening intently the whole time, and now she looked between the two of them and cleared her throat. “It’s certainly a nice idea.”

“I thought so,” said Crowley, choosing to ignore her dubious tone. “Ezra took a while to come around to working with us, but I knew you’d understand.”

“Anthony, have you caught any news since Wednesday?”

“No,” he said, feeling the wind start to leave his sails. “I’ve been avoiding it for my head. What’s in the news?”

“Us! HELL is in the news, along with the rest of the coalition we formed for the protest! Have you got any idea how busy we’ve been? All our commissions at the print shop are on hold because we’ve been printing fliers to take advantage of this. We’ve got the whole country’s ear on police brutality and the need for anti-fascist action, and you want us to divert our resources to saving a shop? Which, by the way, you had literally never heard of before the other night.”

“It’s a piece of leftist history!” Crowley protested. “It’s queer history!”

Ezra stepped forward, gears shifting behind his eyes as he looked at Anathema. “You say you’re ‘taking advantage’ of the situation. Recruitment?”

“Yeah,” said Anathema. “Recruitment and PR stuff.”

“Where do you typically meet?”

“There’s five members who live together near some uni housing in Camden, so usually we have our meetings there. We’re a pretty new group, see, so we’re still pretty small. We couldn’t have done the protest if there weren’t that coalition and I, for one, would like to do more protests.”

He nodded. “How many are you?”

“I think twelve. We’re all friends or friends of friends.”

“And you haven’t got a space for public meetings?”

Anathema blinked. “Well, no.”

Ezra smiled lazily. “It’s been a while, but we used to do events here. Author talks and such. I’ve been thinking recently that it might be nice to get some more people in here before we close permanently.”

Crowley squinted at Ezra. “What-? Oh. Oh! Yeah!” He beamed at Ezra and then grinned conspiratorially at Anathema. “Mutual aid, right? He gives us a free public space to recruit, we save his shop. Quid pro quo.”

“Hm,” said Anathema, looking between the two of them. “Ezra, do you mind if I have a private chat with Crowley outside?”

“By all means,” said Ezra, exchanging a nervous glance with Crowley.

The two of them went out through the shop into Duck Lane.

“Anthony,” said Anathema, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Mate. Pal. Are you using HELL to get off with this guy?”

He took a long step back, ripping his shoulder out from under her. “What?!”

“You’ve spent two of the past three nights with him and he’s exactly the sort of messy, greying academic type you go for.”

“I do not!”

“Don’t you lie to me, Anthony J. Crowley. [2] I was at university with you. I remember you taking every module Michael Simoni TA’d, and you weren’t even good at art history.”

“What has that got to do with this? Ezra saved my life! Or saved my arse, anyway.” He tried to cross his arms through the sling and wound up  grabbing his left arm and squeezing it in a nonsensical display of petulance. “I owe him.”

Anathema nodded. “Okay.”

“You’ll help me?”

She slapped his back, ignoring his gasp as the sudden movement aggravated his bruised ribs. “I was already going to help you; a public meeting space is a brilliant idea. I just wanted to give you shit.”

Crowley groaned, and then he trudged back inside to give Ezra the good news.

—

[1] And this _totally_ didn’t happen to him all the time. Scarcely ever, as a point of fact.

[2] Crowley liked to imagine that the J carried the same radical transgender spirit as the P in Marsha P. Johnson’s name, but in reality it was more like the lazy S in Harry S. Truman.

—

Ezra had not been thinking that it might be nice to get more people into his shop. He had never had a thought like that in his life. In fact, when Naomi had still been around to help Ruth he'd always hid in his room in the back of the shop with a book and a pair of headphones to drown everyone out.

The meeting was in an hour, and he'd only just started dragging the chairs out of the basement and setting them up in rows. He was at the top of the stairs when he heard the tinkle of a bell. He flinched, ran back out to the shop, and tensed even more when he saw that it was Crowley with a bound stack of pamphlets tucked under his good arm.

Crowley raised an eyebrow, his eyes obscured by his sunglasses. "Alright, Ezra?"

"Crowley, hello!" He scurried over to him and took the pamphlets. "Sit down, my dear. Tell me you didn't carry that all this way."

"I took a bus," he protested as Ezra ushered him into one of the few chairs he had set up. He took off his sunglasses and pocketed them, meeting his eyes. "Seriously, are you alright?"

"Fine!" he squeaked. "Perfectly fine."

"You know you're not leading this thing, right? Other people are going to do all the talking. All you've got to do is be friendly and have a building."

Ezra threw up his hands. "I am not _friendly_ , Crowley, if you hadn't noticed. I don't _host_ or _entertain_."

Crowley smiled. "I dunno. I find you pretty entertaining." Then his smile faded. "Er, I mean. You've been a good. Friend. So far. We've only just met, but I like you fine. You're… fine."

Ezra's heart sank. "Right. Right!" He forced a smile. "Thank you, my dear. That was very encouraging."

He cleared his throat and went back to gathering chairs as Crowley began to look rather intently at his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely a short one, and you can kind of tell what I wrote gradually on my phone over time and what I threw together at the last minute so I could give you all SOMETHING. Anyway thank you so much for reading, I promise a nice beefy chapter next time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Ezra didn't know what sort of person he expected to be the face of HELL for their first meeting open to the public, but Adam Young wasn't it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Drug mentions, mentions of unsanitary conditions.

Ezra didn't know what sort of person he expected to be the face of HELL for their first meeting open to the public, but Adam Young wasn't it.

It wasn’t that Ezra was expecting everyone to have painted nails and wear all black like Crowley, but there was a spectrum of quirk in the leftist community that ranged from your angry militants to the gentle souls who went on about radical empathy and yarn bombing while they made biscuits for the next session of the Marxist book club. Adam Young didn’t fall into either of those categories. He didn’t even appear to fall in between. He was about 5’11”, his golden hair was a standard taper cut, and he was wearing an unremarkable red and cream flannel over a plain white t-shirt and a pair of nice but otherwise unremarkable jeans. His shoes were just white Vans, for God’s sake, perfectly clean white Vans. The man didn’t even think to wear combat boots or Birkenstocks. He was probably the most ordinary person ever to set foot in Collective Books, even if it was a beautiful sort of ordinary. [1]

He smiled a politician's smile at Ezra and pulled a laptop out of his bag. It had a sticker over the logo that read, ‘Hail Seitan!’ in bold, green letters.

Ezra breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he was a bit mundane, but one always knew where one stood with vegans. "Hello," he said, putting on a smile.

"Hi!" Adam replied. He looked around the room. "Wow, this place is brilliant. I hope there's a big turnout."

"Mm," said Ezra, who did not. "Do you need any help with anything?"

"Just your WiFi password," he replied, still with that perfect smile.

Ezra flushed. "Oh. I'm afraid I've only got Ethernet, actually."

"Oh." Adam's smile faded into confusion. "Really?"

"I haven't upgraded my computer system in years. The current one suits me just fine."

"Huh. Could I use your Ethernet cable to download a few things before the meeting, then? I'll also need to let Wensleydale know before he starts trying to take minutes for us. We use Etherpad so everyone can just access the minutes when we're done and make corrections themselves."

"Of course," said Ezra, wondering what an Etherpad was. Then, remembering the real purpose of this meeting, he added, "I'll be getting WiFi soon, of course. It's about time I brought this place into the twenty-first century."

"Right," said Adam, who was doing his best to hide his skepticism and failing. "Cheers."

Within half an hour, there were eight anarchists in Ezra's shop: Crowley, Anathema, Adam, and Adam's four flatmates (Wensleydale, who specialized in cybersecurity and doxing fascists; Brian, who was training to become a street medic; Pepper, who helped run a food co-op and had rather impressive biceps from all the lifting she did in the back of the store; and Doug, whom Ezra suspected was too stoned to be of any use at the meeting and was just along for the ride. [2])

The plan was to model what a meeting of anti-fascists looked like to the public without giving away any information they might not want police or more blatant fascists to know about. They'd explain the  system of leadership rotation, they'd explain how to make sure everyone had an equal chance to speak, and they wouldn't reveal how many members they had or who was in the black bloc at the rally.

"That probably means you should sit this one out, Crowley," said Brian apologetically. "I know this was your idea, but it wouldn't be safe for you or any of us to be that obvious about it."

Crowley adjusted his sunglasses, his mouth beginning to twist with disappointment.

"You can listen in from the back," Ezra added with false cheer. "I'll be in and out, I'm sure."

He gave Ezra a half-smile, and Ezra couldn't tell with the sunglasses whether it was sincere. "Thanks."

There wasn't much left to do after that. Pitchers of water and bowls of hummus were set out, pamphlets were placed on chairs, and everyone held their breath as they waited for the public to arrive.

* * *

[1] This wasn't entirely fair. Personality-wise it was accurate to call Adam basic, but it is relevant to note that he was also the son of an obscenely wealthy British Petroleum CFO. His parents divorced when he was four years old, and it was so ugly that his mother had left millions of pounds on the table to cut all ties with his father. It didn't take her long to meet a nice, normal man with a child of his own, and when they married she had Adam take his stepfather's surname. On Adam's seventeenth birthday his biological father reached out to offer him money for university, and after some deliberation Adam accepted. He later graduated with a degree in Environmental Law from Cambridge, which his father only learned when Adam's firm sued BP for poisoning groundwater near Hull.

[2] Doug wasn't an anarchist, but the meetings tended to have free food and he was affable enough that HELL had made him their unofficial mascot. Having Doug around was a bit like having a pet.

* * *

Crowley sat on the sofa with a plate of hummus and pita crisps he'd nicked from the front, listening in on the meeting. It wasn't actually all that interesting—it was meant for the uninitiated public, after all—but he hated to be left out. Even Ezra seemed to occupied to come back and visit him. And maybe he was being childish, but this was his bloody event. It was bad enough Adam was chairing today. Stupid, perfect Adam. Everyone liked Adam. Ezra probably _adored_ Adam, the charming bastard. He probably didn't even miss Crowley.

Okay, so Crowley liked Adam, too. He was a lovely person. He had the charisma of a future prime minister and knew it, and he only ever used that power to lift up the people around him.

Fine. It was all fine. Sighing, he decided to do what he always did when he was left alone in a strange house and feeling a bit put out about it: snoop. Medicine cabinets were always fun for that. He'd been in Ezra's loo a few times, but he'd either been injured or drunk so he hadn't gotten a proper look at the lotion offerings and secrets hidden in plain sight. He smiled a bit to himself and shut the door behind him.

Ezra's toilet was as frozen and time as the rest of the house. It was clean, but the fluorescent bulb in the ceiling cast a pallid light over everything. The dingy wallpaper and separate hot and cold faucets didn't help. The only other light came from the yellow light from the alley outside, filtered through the frosted window that was open a crack for airflow.

Crowley was just about to open the medicine cabinet when he heard a voice outside the window.

"Yeah," it said, "I think you've got some time. They only started half an hour ago."

He checked the time on his phone. It had indeed been half an hour since Adam had called the meeting to order.

The voice was deep and confident, and its owner was probably American or Canadian. "Sure," it said. "Ten minutes sounds perfect. I'll make sure I'm far away." It paused as the person on the other line said something. "Thanks, Dan," the voice said cheerfully. "I owe you one."

He stepped away from the window. Ten minutes until what? Who the hell even was that? He ran to the doorway to go find someone and paused. There could be police in that meeting, which was why he wasn't allowed out. He didn't want to compromise himself or anyone else in HELL.

Maybe this was nothing. Lots of things probably started at half six, and maybe this person had a perfectly innocent reason to make themselves scarce.

Groaning, he did the only thing he could think of. He stuck his hand through the curtains out to the front of the shop and waved like an idiot. Then he stepped back and waited.

Anathema was the one who came in. "What is it?" she whispered.

"There might be trouble," said Crowley. "I heard some American talking in the alley. I'm not sure it was about us, but I think it is. Someone named Dan's going to do them a favor in ten minutes and they said they'd make sure to be far away. I'd maybe have Pepper keep watch outside."

She nodded, and then she sighed. "I knew this was too bloody easy."

* * *

Ezra hadn't seen Crowley's wave, and he didn't know why Anathema had asked Pepper to stand outside the shop. He certainly didn't suspect anything was wrong; Anathema had kept her face carefully blank. In fact, he was so absorbed in hating the current member of the public drilling Adam on Stalinism that he didn't realize anything was wrong until a crowbar smashed through the front window of his shop.

The anarchists acted quickly, Adam and Wensleydale shepherding the new recruits and a very confused Doug to the back of the shop and leading them out the back door with Crowley. They tried to get Ezra to come with them, but he could see now who exactly was coming up the street and decided to stay put.

A band of skinheads were pointing into the shop and laughing. One of them, short and squat, pulled out a can of red spray paint and drew a swastika [3] on the remains of the Collective's display window. Some of the paint dripped into the books.

"Excuse me!" he shouted, running to the window and knocking the books quickly to the floor. A bit of glass cut his hand, but he didn't care.

The tall Nazi laughed. "Oh! Polite, ain't you- oof!"

Anathema had just punched him in the jaw. She looked back at Ezra and glared. "You need to get-"

A police siren interrupted, and the leftists all froze. The Nazis, however, grinned and made a run for it as though they didn't expect to be chased at all.

"This is the police," said a voice over the loudspeaker. "Put your hands up. All of you are under arrest."

Ezra put up his hands, one of which was starting to bleed, and felt his heart sink.

\--

[3] At least, it was meant to be a swastika. It looked more like a minimalist triskelion, or a very excited stick figure without a face. The Nazi in question clearly wasn't that bright.

\--

The jail was gender segregated, so Ezra was separated from Anathema and Pepper. None of the male anarchists or potential new recruits had showed, and he supposed it was some small comfort. The cell smelled of vomit and urine, but it was mercifully empty as it was only early evening on a Wednesday night. All in all it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but he was still relieved when an officer finally came to tell him he'd been bailed out.

That was, until he'd seen who did the bailing out.

"Gabriel?" he balked.

Gabriel waved and stood from his seat, wearing a crisp grey coat and a soft-looking scarf. "Ezra." He twirled a ring of keys around his finger. "Let me drive you home. We need to talk."

Ezra collected his things from the front desk and followed him out, dazed. "You bailed me out?"

He nodded, smiling sadly. "I always liked you, you know. You don't take bullshit and I appreciate that in a person."

"Ha," he said dryly, but he didn't trust himself to say more than that. He was beginning to worry that he was going to be sick.

Gabriel remained silent until they got to his car, which was of course as flash as it was probably expensive. It was new. German. He opened the door for Ezra and then got in the driver's side. It was only after he'd backed out of his parking spot that he spoke. "This is the first time your shop's had an incident, isn't it?"

Ezra shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

"I know the police came to your place last week, Ezra. That's two incidents within a week of each other, plus property damage." He sighed. "I know you're upset about the development, but that's the world we live in. I always thought you understood that, even if you did want things to be a little different."

"Thank you for bailing me out," he said stiffly, wishing the conversation would just end itself.

"No more anarchists, alright? You've been a good tenant so I'm giving you another chance, but I can't afford to let you risk my property value right now. I don't want to have to evict you."

"I'm sure you don't," Ezra snapped, and both of them fell silent. Gabriel reached over and turned on the radio. _Money, Money, Money_ by ABBA was playing. Neither of them bothered to change it.

The car pulled up to Duck Lane and Ezra was surprised to see that the lights were on in the shop. The windows looked even worse than they had before. Someone had come back and decided to fix the swastika and toss in a homophobic slur for the fun of it. Gabriel let him out, and he stepped inside expecting to see the place looted.

What he found instead was Crowley sitting at the cash register and texting furiously. He looked up when he heard the jingle of the front door opening. "Ezra," he said softly. His sunglasses were off, his warm brown eyes wide with surprise and concern. "How did you get out?"

"My landlord," he grumbled. He went over to the window and picked up a book stained with red paint.

Crowley stood and walked over to him. "I'm so sorry. If I'd known it was going to go like this, I wouldn't have suggested it. We're working on getting the girls out of jail now. Someone planned this, I think. I overheard someone in the alley—"

"You're right," said Ezra, hand shaking. "I shouldn't have let you talk me into this."

"What?"

He rounded on him. "I could be evicted, Crowley, do you understand that? I'll lose my home, my business, _everything_ in one fell swoop and I've got nowhere else to go."

Crowley took a step back. "Did he threaten you? I- Listen, if it was your landlord, HELL can help you out. We can—"

"I don't want your help," he said coldly. "I don't need a bunch of violent revolutionaries getting me kicked out of the only home I've ever had. Now get out, I need to call the insurance company."

"I'm sorry—"

He pointed to the door. "Just… leave," he said, voice cracking. "Please."

Crowley stood and slinked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Ezra locked it and collapsed to the floor, shame washing over him. He wanted to call Crowley back, apologize, but he didn't know if Gabriel was out there watching. This was his home and he couldn't lose it. Maybe Ruth and Naomi wouldn't approve of him kowtowing to power, maybe the anarchists wouldn't help him if he wasn't willing to engage in some sort of revolution, but they didn't understand. They all worked with other people, they had a collective, but _the_ Collective was all Ezra had.

He just didn't know how he was going to save it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who waited for this chapter, especially the people who kicked my ass back into gear on writing it. For the last like month I've had a draft open in OneNote for Chapter 4 and the only text was "basically the end of Fiddler on the Roof Act I" so fun fact there. This is still basically a leftist romcom so don't worry, this is just the obligatory dramatic part and they'll be cute again real soon! Hopefully sooner than last time!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for marijuana use, and if you're coming here live I swear to god I wrote the first part of this chapter before the shenanigans this weekend. My only excuse is that most of my knowledge of leftist activist circles comes from my experiences on the West Coast of the U.S. and evergreens ain't the only trees we got out here. So, all that said, enjoy!

The core seven members of HELL sat around Doug and company's coffee table, passing around a bowl Doug had packed for them since his weed guy Tim had been by that day. They'd spent the whole afternoon trying to come up with a way to save Ezra's shop using Adam's expertise as a lawyer, their skills as (admittedly quite green) anarchist agitators, or the power of true love Anathema was certain Crowley and Ezra would share if only they’d kiss already. It was, it seemed, to no avail, so they turned to a little herbal enhancement in the hopes of coming to a more creative solution.

Anathema and Pepper each had a corner of the love seat, Pepper with her toes dug into the crevice between the cushions and Anathema sitting with her legs cross-crossed. Crowley was sat on the floor in front of Anathema, leaning his back against the couch with his arm still tucked neatly away. His eyes drooped as Anathema played with his hair when it wasn't her turn to take a hit. Brian, Wensleydale, and Doug were sat across from them on the other couch, and Adam sat apart from the group in the flat's one armchair, listening silently.

"We could throw a brick at the landlord's window," said Pepper before taking a hit.

Brian's face lit up like a child being told he's going to Disneyland, but Wensleydale cut in. "That could just exacerbate the situation. We've got to move carefully. Crowley, you said it sounded like he ordered that attack, right?"

"Yuh," said Crowley affirmatively, staring at the multicolor fairy lights hung around the flat's front window. [1]

Anathema took the pipe from Pepper. "That could be something," she said. "We know he's breaking the law somehow. We just have to find a way to prove it without stepping in too much shit ourselves." She inhaled, and then she frowned. "Light?" she asked, holding a hand out to Pepper.

Crowley processed what Anathema said and nodded, watching with fascination as she lit the contents of the bowl and took a hit. "We could…" He blinked his dry eyes several times and swallowed. "I dunno. S'a load of bollocks, is what I think this all is. I mean, the Nazis aren't following the law. The landlord isn't following the law. I'll bet you the police are in on this somehow, which is against the letter of the law anyway. We're not a bunch of bloody Trotskyites, we don't need the law on our side."

Anathema opened her mouth and blew out a steady stream of smoke. "Adam's a law professional. That's one of the biggest advantages we've got."

"I could dox the landlord, I guess," said Wensleydale, taking drag from his vape pen. [2] "Dunno how much good that'd do."

"I wish we could just replicate what happened last time," said Brian. "God knows the Nazis have shown up everywhere we've shown up. I bet they'd just come because it's us."

Adam shifted in his cushy armchair. It was the first time he'd moved all night, and the room fell silent. "That isn't a bad plan," he said in a voice subdued by cannabis and by deep thought. "All we'd have to do is show up and keep the cameras rolling, right? I don't see what would be dicey about just… staging a protest and filming it. We could get the other neighbors in on it. Raise some awareness about tenant unions, that sort of thing."

"Just one problem," said Crowley, turning his drooping eyes to Adam. "Ezra might get evicted if we show up. And he doesn't want our help, anyway." Or to see him. He'd made that perfectly clear.

Anathema stopped playing with his hair and tilted his head up so she could look into his eyes. "You listen to me, Anthony Crowley. That man fancies you as much as you fancy him. And even if he doesn't, you've got to at least fight for him. He saved you from Nazis. [3] God dammit, one of us deserves a forbidden romance in this neoliberal dystopia on the brink of fascism. You should go to him."

Crowley blinked at her. "What, right now?"

"Yes!" she said, punching the air.

He flicked his eyes down, away from her, and then back up. "I'll do it if you buy me curry chips and bring them to me."

Pepper peeled herself from the couch. "I'll bloody well buy you curry chips if it stops you going over there high as a kite to confess your love to someone."

"I could kiss you, Pep," Crowley sighed gratefully.

She snorted. "Not on your life, sunshine. Anyone else?"

Between distractions and negotiations, it was another twenty minutes before Pepper got out the door.

When she left, Adam looked at Crowley. "So are you gonna do it?"

Crowley looked up and sighed. "Dunno. I don't want Ezra to lose his shop because of me."

"Hang on," said Anathema. "You were hiding from the public, weren't you?"

Crowley sat up, turned around, and looked at her. "Yeah?"

"And the police never saw your face. They never identified you."

"Oh," said Crowley. Then, after a long pause, his eyes widened. "Oh!" He turned to Adam. "Are you sure we should be working on a tenants union with all the police brutality stuff going on?" [4]

Adam crossed his arms, smiling. "We're expanding, we can multitask. Plus an injury to one is an injury to all, right? Ezra's part of your community, and that means he's part of ours. We can help him and the rest of his street."

Crowley nodded and smiled, his heart full with the determination to go to Ezra first thing in the morning.

* * *

[1] Crowley’s tolerance for pot was low and his anxiety could only handle the most mellowing of indica strains. Consequently, his mind was moving at half a minute per second. As far as space went, his mind was simultaneously as far away as an abandoned field in Iceland under the Aurora Borealis and as nearby as the chip shop down the road.

[2] Wensleydale worried about the health risks of smoking. He also tended to cough rather loudly when he smoked, and he didn't want his cool anarchist friends making fun of him.

[3] Again, technically police, but even if she'd thought about it Anathema wouldn't have made the distinction.

[4] Anarchist groups don't strictly have leaders (and often quite strictly do _not_ ), but this was Adam. If he'd been a liberal he'd be Prime Minister within a decade, and if he'd been fascist… Well. Suffice to say, between his magnetism and his father's connections it was fortunate Adam was against unjust hierarchies and centralized concentrations of power.

* * *

Crowley did _not_ feel determined the next morning. Anathema practically had to push him out the door, and when she shut it he heard the click of the deadbolt and knew she really wasn't giving him a choice.

He decided to take a nice, bracing walk to clear his head again. He was also dressed in a green jumper and blue jeans, the former having been borrowed from Anathema and the latter a hopeful gift from his mum that he’d wear something other than black. Apart from the sling and the lingering shadows of bruises over his eyes, he looked normal. It was awful. He felt out of his element, and this time on his walk his brain was nearly back up to snuff, which meant it was more than capable of going in circles imagining all the ways this was about to go terribly, terribly wrong.

Eventually, inevitably, he found himself standing between the red and rainbow flags again. Everything was cleaned up, graffiti washed off, but the plywood nailed to the window left a hollow feeling at the pit of his stomach. The sign said open, but he knocked all the same.

Ezra opened the door. Instead of immediately slamming it shut like Crowley expected, he smiled. “Thank goodness,” he said. “I meant to call you…” He paused. “What are you wearing?” [5]

"Ngk," said Crowley. "Er. Um. Clothes. N-normal clothes. You know.” He laughed nervously. "Not—Not black."

“Right,” said Ezra. He laughed, too, though there was a stiff quality to it. “I almost didn’t recognize you. You look lovely. Er- That is, it’s a nice jumper.”

“S’Anathema’s,” Crowley squeaked. His friend’s name in his mouth reminded him that she’d probably be humiliated by this shameful display, so he stood up straight and cleared his throat. "Look. About what happened… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Ezra—"

Ezra put up a hand. "Enough. You've already apologized, and now it's my turn to do the same. I shouldn't have spoken to you the way I did. All you did was try to help me, and Lord knows no one's done that for me in… Well. Not in a very long time." He took a deep breath and held out a hand. "Come inside. It's best not do this sort of thing out here where people can hear us, hm?"

"Right," said Crowley, his surge of confidence fading already. _What_ sort of thing? But Ezra was holding out his hand, and however upright he held himself he was looking at Crowley with a vulnerability he'd never pictured him being capable of. Twisting one corner of his mouth up into a fragile half-smile, he took it.

Ezra twisted the sign on the door to "closed," and then he met Crowley's eyes. He didn't let go of his hand. "Have I told you what this shop is? To me, I mean?"

Crowley shook his head. "I know you knew the previous owners."

He nodded seriously. "They took me in after I ran away from home. It was the nineties, it was a small mining town, you know the story. I had a lot of rough nights when I first came to London, but then someone told Ruth and Naomi and how they were always taking people in, and I worked here in exchange for a bed. And, well, we got on. I never left, and after that they were my family." He squeezed his hand tighter around Crowley's. "This is my home, you see, and it's all I've got left of them. I lashed out because I was afraid of losing it, and I was wrong to do it because you're the first person I've met in a long time who's shown me the sort of unquestioning kindness they did. I can't give that up, even if it means losing the shop. It's all things, and you've rather quickly become more important to me than that."

"More important than your home?" Crowley asked, feeling dizzy. "Ezra, that's… I'm really not worth that. I'm a mess. I go to rallies and get beat up. I led the police here, remember?"

Ezra smiled. "You're better off than me. You've got friends, Crowley. Comrades, I suppose, in the classical sense of the term. People who are willing to fight for you and whatever it is you've decided you…" He hesitated.

He took a step closer, peering up into Ezra's eyes. "What I've decided I what?" he asked softly.

"Whatever it is you've decided you care about," Ezra finished, his voice quiet as though he had a candle in front of him and was trying to speak without blowing the flame.

Well, it was now or never. Crowley's pulse quickened as he twisted his hand out of Ezra's and reached up to push a curl out of his face. He took hold of the side of his head and guided it down until their lips met. Ezra was warm and soft, still hesitant, and after a moment he grabbed the back of Crowley's head and held it to him like he was afraid Crowley would change his mind. Crowley pushed into him, gripping his hair, and Ezra began to kiss him like he'd just found water in a vast desert. Finally, his grip on Crowley eased.

Crowley pulled away, but he didn't let go. He ran his thumb over the crinkled lines around Ezra's smiling eyes. "You can have both, you know," he said. "The shop and me. We've all been talking, and we've got a plan. We can organize your whole neighborhood and get your landlord out of your hair for good." He went up on his toes and kissed him again. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," said Ezra, still grinning from ear to ear. "Yes, my dear, I trust you."

* * *

[5] Crowley had played this exact scenario out in his head that morning as he got dressed. "Well," he planned to say, suave as anything, “you didn’t want to see Crowley the anarchist anymore, but I didn’t think you’d mind if a nice, normal bloke named Anthony popped by for a chat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo this thing only has like a chapter and an epilogue left, I think. Hopefully I'll be back to a more regular update schedule now that I'm back in the swing of things with my job. Thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

Ezra knocked on the door and flinched, clutching the fliers in his hand so tightly they crumpled under his freshly-manicured nails. [1] He’d never been good with people. Ruth and Naomi had known all their neighbors, thrown dinners and parties whenever they had the time, taken in strays like him who came their way. People loved them. Nobody really knew him.

The old woman who answered squinted at his fliers and kept her hand on the door, poised to shut it as soon as Ezra was done making his pitch.

He cleared his throat. "Good afternoon, madam," he said timidly. "My name is Ezra Fell. I own the Collective bookshop down the road, and—"

The woman gasped. "Ruth and Naomi's shop?"

"Yes," he said slowly. "I took over after Ruth retired."

"Oh, they were just the loveliest couple, weren't they?"

He nodded. "They were. I was quite close to them."

"Oh, well, any friend of theirs is a friend of mine. What can I do for you, my dear?"

Ezra looked at the stack of fliers in his hand and held one out to her. "How would you like to join a tenants union?"

* * *

[1] He always went to his favorite technician, Sonia, when he needed to look and feel his best. Sonia was a grumpy, middle-aged woman who never made eye contact and refused to make conversation with either him or her colleagues. Ezra adored her for that very reason.

* * *

It took two months of canvassing, informational meetings, and countless teas with various members of HELL, but eventually they got the majority of Gabriel's tenants on board with the union. All that was left was to make a public demonstration. Rent was due on May Day, and so they prepared their picket signs for May Day.

Anathema's print shop made a big banner for the event: "Duck Lane Tenants Union Block Party!" The weather seemed to be holding, so people brought out snacks, passed out beers, and milled about eating food with their picket signs tucked under their arms.

Ezra put an arm around Crowley—Anthony. He liked the people close to him to call him Anthony, and they'd become so wonderfully close. Anthony's eye had long since healed, freeing up those warm brown eyes to meet his with a nervous smile.

He put his arm—still a bit stiff, but out of its sling—around Ezra's waist. "Ready to bash a fash?"

"I do hope it doesn't come to that," said Ezra with a grimace. He looked around at the members of HELL scattered throughout the crowd, ready to pull on their Black Bloc jumpers and scarves at any moment.

A Rolls-Royce convertible drove up to Ezra, the driver grinning from the top-down vehicle as he parked.

"Ezra," said Gabriel coolly.

Ezra took Anthony's hand and squeezed. "Gabriel."

"I notice no one paid their rent this month."

He looked around the street at everyone milling about with picket signs. "No?" he said absently, as though Gabriel had just commented on the nice weather. "Funny, that."

"I also notice some people here who aren't renters." He held a hand up to Anthony in a little wave. "How's it going? Are you one of Ezra's new anarchist buddies?"

Anthony looked down at his hand entwined in Ezra's, and then back up at Gabriel. "Do we look like 'buddies' to you, pal?"

Gabriel snorted. "Good luck keeping this up. I look forward to having you out of my hair."

The car drove off, and Anthony looked up at Adam. Adam nodded to Brian and Wensleydale, who hopped onto bikes and executed their plan. They were to follow Gabriel's route without being caught and catch him on the phone, matching his timing with that of the Nazis and police. The other members of HELL looked at one another and began to move toward the edge of the crowd, ready to defend Ezra and his neighbors. Anthony let go of his hand and kissed his cheek. 

"Ready?" asked Ezra.

Anthony gave an experimental twist of his arm. "Oh, I'm champing at the bit for a round two."

Within fifteen minutes, the same band of Nazis had arrived. HELL pulled on their hoods and pulled out their various blunt objects, and a hush fell over the street as HELL formed a ring and shouted for everyone to go inside. Ezra went to the doorway of his shop, but he didn't go in himself. The tall skinhead stood at the front of the pack, grinning nastily at those remaining out on the road. There was little sound save for the rustle of a spring breeze through the trees. Everyone held their breath.

Then, all at once, the Nazis charged forward. HELL's number had increased since the rally, and this time they were evenly matched with the Nazis. It was hard to tell who was who. One fighter who could have been Pepper or could have been Adam headbutted a skinhead in the chest; another who was probably Anathema or possibly one of the new members took a blow to the stomach but managed to stay valiantly upright.

Ezra kept an eye on Anthony. He was holding his own in spite of his arm, dodging at every opportunity and getting a quick jab or two in whenever he could. It was almost enough to make Ezra relax about the whole thing. At least, until the tall Nazi and the short one who'd graffitied the swastika onto the Collective's window backed him up against another fight, where a few other Nazis hovered around ready to grab him if these two didn't get him first. The short one reared back with his fist, and Ezra was never quite clear on what happened next. He knew logically he must have run down from the stoop of his shop. He knew, also quite logically, that he must have pushed a few people out of the way to get to Anthony.

But the next thing Ezra knew with any certainty was the crack of his fist against the shorter Nazi's nose.

"Holy shit!" said a voice behind him.

Ezra turned around to apologize, but Anthony pulled him down into a quick, rough kiss.

"I love you," he said, his dark eyes alight with awe and affection.

Ezra looked around and only just caught the tall Nazi in time by elbowing him in the stomach. "Is this really the time for that sort of first, my dear?"

"Now or never I s—incoming!"

He turned around again to see the shorter Nazi running toward him. He sighed and glanced back one more time. "I love you, too," he said, and once again he punched the Nazi in the face.

While the skinheads were distracted, Anthony rounded behind them and hit them both with as much force as he could using a thick wooden rod he'd picked up at the craft store he'd picked up for the occasion. [2] Between Ezra's endurance and Anthony's speed, within a minute the pair of Nazis had no choice to retreat.

They kissed again, savoring the moment, and as they looked around they realized the other Nazis had fled, too. A cheer rippled through the denizens of HELL, and Adam shouted, "Everyone scarper!"

By the time the police finally arrived, there was nobody left to arrest.

* * *

[2] He'd picked it up among their picket sign supplies, and as he and Ezra had both been rather drunk at the time he'd thought it was funny to paint "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" on it.

* * *

Crowley smiled as Ezra handed him a mug of tea. He was warm from the shower he'd just taken, and warmed even more as Ezra took his place on the sofa beside him, his own curls damp from the same shower.

"Hey," he said lazily.

Ezra smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Hello."

"You did pretty well out there," said Crowley, smirking. "For a liberal."

"For the last time—" Ezra began, but Crowley leaned in and shut him up with a kiss.

"In all seriousness, though, thank you. You probably saved my arse again."

The bell over the front door of jingled, and Wensleydale's voice rang out through the shop.

"We got it!" he said.

Crowley and Ezra looked at each other, and they ran out to the front to see what Wensleydale had got.

* * *

The next day, Ezra strolled into Gabriel's leasing office with bruises on his knuckles and a spring in his step. He whistled a tune Anthony's antifa friends had tried to show him that was terribly catchy but a bit too new for his taste, but he whistled it quite happily as he knocked out a shave-and-a-haircut pattern on Gabriel's door.

Gabriel answered, and his smile brightened into something curdled and artificial. "Ezra," he said. "I was just reading your lease agreement."

"Lovely," said Ezra cheerfully. "As a bookseller I'm always happy to hear people are reading. May I come in? I've got something to show you."

He watched giddily as his landlord's expression went from curdled to properly sour. "Alright," he said, and he stood aside to let Ezra in.

It wasn't the most cinematographic of videos. It was blurry from being so zoomed in, and clearly taken from some sort of hiding spot, but Gabriel's voice was clear enough coming out of the parked convertible.

"I need this thing shut down, Dan," he could be heard saying. "Just send in your goons and then send in your cops and we can put an end to this fucking thing." The conversation went on, and when it was over whoever was filming ran out and made sure to get a clear shot of the car's license plate. It was Gabriel, and there would be no way to deny it.

When the video finished, Gabriel looked up at him with wide eyes.

Ezra smiled. "That would be Officer Daniel Jones of the Metropolitan Police, wouldn't it?"

"How—?"

"Nevermind all that. You understand how much damage this could do to you if it were leaked to the press, don't you?"

"I—"

"Likely far more financial damage than the sale of our little chunk of Soho could make up for. Your reputation would be shot. You'd probably end up in prison for collaborating with a hate group. It could be rather bad for you, Gabriel."

Gabriel swallowed. "Fine. Fine, I'll pull out, I won't sell your building."

"And?"

"'And?' What do you mean, 'and?' You get to keep your bookstore, what the hell else do you want?"

"I want my neighbors to stay where they are."

He snorted. "I know you, Ezra. You don't even _like_ your neighbors."

"Maybe not," said Ezra, "but they are my neighbors all the same. I'm here to act in solidarity with them. You won't sell any of our buildings, and you'll recognize our union."

Gabriel glared at him, opened his mouth, and looked down at Ezra's phone again. He deflated. "Alright," he said. "I'll cancel things with the developers."


	7. Epilogue

One year later.

Anathema came into the shop and slammed a heavy cardboard box onto the checkout counter. "Boys!" she called.

Crowley poked his head out of the back room and looked at the box. "Oh, shit, are they ready?"

She beamed. "Yep. A thousand copies, just like you requested. You can even use the box for donations."

He came out and hugged her. "Thank you, Anathema. Thank you so, so much."

Ezra walked out of the back room and gasped. "Are they here?"

Anathema laughed, pulling away from Crowley's hug. "They sure are. Come on, take a look."

Ezra opened the box and pulled out one of the brochures. It read:

RUTH 1:16 BOOK DRIVE

A solidarity organization for homeless LGBT youth.

Ruth and Naomi Goldberg were pillars of Soho's queer and leftist communities in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The founders of Collective Books in Duck Lane, they were known for taking in LGBT youth with nowhere else to go. This book drive will provide LGBT youth centres around London with books donated by the Collective's customers and provide centres with funds for more books, clothing, sanitary items, medical care, psychological counseling, and more for the youths they serve.

Ezra didn't seem to notice he was crying until Crowley reached up to wipe a tear away before it dripped onto the brochure. He smiled at Anathema. "It's perfect," he said, speaking confidently for both of them.

The bell jingled again, and a customer came in.

Crowley met Ezra's eyes. "Don't bother composing yourself, love," he whispered. "I've got this."

Anathema smiled, watching her friend greet the customer with his usual friendliness. "I have to say, I never saw Anthony working in a bookstore, but it suits him a hell of a lot better than telemarketing."

"It's a good look on him," Ezra agreed.

"The flag is a good look, too," she said with a grin, jerking a thumb at the red and black flag hanging on the far wall.

Ezra sighed and rolled his eyes. "Compromise is everything in a relationship."

"Well, I think it's sweet." She leaned in, bringing her voice down to a whisper. "Are you popping the question soon? We have a ton of orders coming in, and I want to get those save the dates going ASAP."

He shushed her sharply. "Could we not discuss this with him in hearing distance?" he hissed.

"Discuss what with me in hearing distance?" Crowley asked, draping himself lazily over the counter and smirking.

Ezra turned red. "Nothing."

"Well," said Crowley, kissing his cheek. "Bugger off to the back. I'll finish up in here and meet you there, soon. Anathema, want to stay a while?"

"Can't," she said. "Me and Pep have got some recon to do for HELL."

He smiled. "Well, good luck."

"Good luck to both of you!" she said with a grin, and she was out the door before either of them could make a comment.

"What was that about?" Crowley asked Ezra.

"Nothing," said Ezra, putting his hands in his front pockets and feeling the velvet box held in one of them. "Close up after you're done here. I think we've got quite a nice evening ahead of us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May Day, comrades! Solidarity forever, and sincerely thank you so much for supporting this fic to the end.


	8. Bibliography

Hi, everyone! Long time no see here on the ol' _Mutual Aid_ front. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who's read and enjoyed this fic, everyone who's rec'd it, and everyone who's done fanart of it. You've all been so incredibly sweet.

So when I wrote this fic, I was still working through a lot of leftist theory and didn't quite understand it myself. I just thought it was a fun idea to write a romantic antifa AU and a cute way to play around with some ideas I was just starting to embrace. It wasn't meant as propaganda, and even if it had been I would never have imagined it might be particularly effective propaganda. Apparently it is, though, because several people have let me know that this fic got them curious about leftist politics and activism or reignited a past desire to read theory or take action.

I don't know how to convey the terror of a stranger on the internet telling you that you converted them to anarcho-communism when you still barely understand the theory yourself, but boy howdy that sure happened an awful lot and I always felt a little irresponsible accidentally radicalizing people without having much guidance to offer. I understand the theory a lot better now, though, and as long as this fic is giving me a platform for it I thought it would be neat to create a bibliography of sorts for anyone who reads this and wants to learn more theory and maybe even do some praxis (i.e. combine that theory with practice—see, you’re learning!)

Now, I will be linking a lot of YouTube stuff and some podcasts because those have been indispensable for distilling a lot of complicated concepts for me, but I would discourage relying on those distillations exclusively. Get curious, at least skim the theory if you can, and if you have a question please don't hesitate to ask me.

This fic was written as a joke, but it’s a loving joke rooted in a genuine belief that these political ideas can help us build a better world. So, if those ideas I joked about resonated with you at all, I hope this guide gives you a nice foundation to build your own beliefs on.

**Antifascism**

This isn't going to be a guide to "joining antifa." First of all, that's not how antifa works; locally organized cells of antifascists that sometimes practice black bloc tactics at protests exist in cities and regions all over the world, but they aren't connected by any central governing body and the people who make up those cells are more defined by the work they do day to day against fascism than any formal membership within a group. One doesn't join antifa so much as take on the practice of antifascist action, either individually or as part of a collective working as a team toward specific direct actions. And that's what this section is: an explanation of what fascism is, how to recognize it, and what you can do to stop it.

Umberto Eco, [Ur-Fascism](https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf) - Fascism is a difficult ideology to pin down in one easy definition, and Umberto Eco's 1995 essay does a fantastic job distilling it into fourteen traits you can call as you see them in the hopes of preventing a fascist movement from spreading and taking over entirely. Knowing your enemy is always the first step.

Robert O. Paxton, [The Five Stages of Fascism](http://w3.salemstate.edu/~cmauriello/pdfEuropean/Paxton_Five%20Stages%20of%20Fascism.pdf) - Another excellent diagnostic tool. Eco focusses on what fascism is as an ideology, and Paxton details how fascism tends to operate and take root in democratic societies.

Robert Evans, _Behind the Bastards_ , [The Non-Nazi Bastards Who Helped Hitler Rise to Power](https://www.behindthebastards.com/podcasts/the-non-nazi-bastards-who-helped-hitler-rise-to-power.htm) - This does a great job breaking down the way liberals and conservatives have enabled fascism in the past, and provides a good idea of what things to look out for now while we're still ostensibly living in a democracy. I actually recommend the entire podcast, it legitimately is one of my favorites.

Innuendo Studios, [The Alt-Right Playbook](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xGawJIseNY&list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ) - This series of videos is good primer on fascist debate tactics to watch out for, and a fantastic explanation of why debating fascists is rarely a good idea and what you can do instead.

Contrapoints, [De-Crypting the Alt-Right: How to Spot a Fascist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4BVGPkdzk) - In this video Natalie Wynn does a great job breaking down the kinds of dogwhistles fascists tend to use to recognize each other. It doesn't matter that a lot of the examples are outdated, because she's laid out the thinking behind the concepts fascists hide behind to allow you to sleuth them out in the future. Natalie has been called the Oscar Wilde of YouTube for her witty, stylistic videos, and while I don't always agree with her entirely I think she's a brilliant voice worth hearing out. Plus, she's hilarious.

PhilosophyTube, [The Philosophy of Antifa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ) - PhilosophyTube is one of my favorite YouTube channels. I've never had a great mind for philosophy, and he does such a good job breaking down arguments in a way that makes sense and takes counterarguments into account. I recommend Olly's entire channel, he's incredibly smart and while not all his content is purely leftist, he does a fantastic job breaking down leftist philosophy in a way that allows you to really get it as a layperson. I'll be linking more of his stuff in other sections of this because he's done a lot to help me understand theory I might not have been able to engage with otherwise. Also, please look at his bibliographies because his videos are always incredibly well-sourced.

If you want to take some anti-fascist action yourself, here are a few organizations fighting the good fight that don't involve a single illegal act of Nazi-punching. Nice, squeaky-clean antifascism to get you going. This is going to skew a very America-heavy because that's where I'm involved, but if you know of any organizations in your area please link them in the comments on this chapter so people can look and find them.

[Life After Hate](https://www.lifeafterhate.org/) \- This is an organization started by former white nationalists, for people involved in white nationalist movements who want to leave the life. Fascist movements and hate movements can be something of a death cult, and leaving can be difficult. If you know somebody who's been taken in by the alt-right who might like to leave, these people can help them out.

[The Rural Organizing Project](http://www.rop.org/) \- People listen to fascists when they feel no one else is listening to them. This project does crucial left-wing outreach work in parts of the United States at the greatest risk of fascist radicalization, specifically rural areas.

[Never Again Action](https://www.neveragainaction.com/) \- This is a website for the #NeverAgainIsNow movement of Jews protesting ICE that's been in the news so much lately. If you sign up for their email list, they'll update you on action taking place in your local area.

[Border Angels](https://www.borderangels.org/) \- The most important antifascist work of all is keeping the people targeted by fascism safe. On top of the education and advocacy work a lot of pro-immigrant organizations do, volunteers from Border Angels leave food and water out in the desert for people crossing the border. It's a simple, human act that shines so bright in the dark world we're living in now.

**Anarcho-Communism**

From Wikipedia: " **Anarcho-communism**... is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought which advocates the abolition of the **state** , **capitalism** , **wage labour** and **private property** (while retaining respect for personal property, along with collectively-owned items, goods and services) in favor of common ownership of the **means of production** , direct democracy, and ... production and consumption based on the guiding principle: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.'"

This was the best definition of anarcho-communism I could find and if you don't know the difference between private and personal property, or what labor there could be besides wage labor, or what the means of production are, it's probably fucking nonsense. These are all really good, useful terms that represent complicated ideas because that's what language is supposed to do, but there's just so damn many of them.

The thing about these jargony terms is they’re all really important and if you're not familiar with them or you've only heard the liberal capitalist propaganda definitions it's hard to know where to start. This is why everyone who starts their journey into leftism feels like a fucking dumbass for the first year at least. It sucks. So as a kind of experiment, I guess, I’m going to do an experiment to see if I can make things easier on you as you start your own journey. If this doesn’t help at least I tried something.

I’ve made a wee little glossary out of those terms I bolded so that you can at least wrap your head around a few basic concepts because I don't want to let you loose on theory without some kind of foundation. Then we'll dive into the sources I think you should check out, okay? Okay.

 _Anarchism_ : A system of societal organization in which all unjust hierarchies, such as the state or patriarchy, are abolished. "An" meaning "no" and "archos" meaning "rulers." Literally, "no rulers."

 _Communism_ : A system of societal organization in which private property (defined below) is abolished and the means of production (also defined below) are owned collectively. That's literally all it means, and the debate about how we get to that or what that actually looks like is how you get everything from Stalinism to anarchism under the banner of communism.

 _The State_ : The centralized apparatus through which hierarchy is enforced through violent means such as police and military force.

 _Capitalism_ : An economic and political system under which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit. This private ownership is enforced through the power of the state.

 _Wage Labor_ : A socioeconomic condition under which the laborer works for an employer in exchange for a wage, i.e. laborers working for bosses to make money.

 _Private Property_ : Essentially, private property is capital goods that have been privatized. This is stuff like land and raw materials. It does not mean personal property like your clothes or your beloved family heirlooms.

 _The Means of Production_ : The raw materials and tools used in the production of goods and services. This includes things like land, water, iron, factories, energy, and food. It's the stuff workers use to do their jobs and make stuff.

So, basically, the goal of anarcho-communism is a classless, stateless, moneyless society in which everyone works together to make sure everyone else is taken care of, and other than that you can do whatever the hell you want as long as it isn't hurting anyone else. If literally nothing I wrote above has clicked for you yet, you have nothing to feel ashamed about. I took an embarrassing amount of time to figure out each of those definitions and I still don't feel super confident in them. We’re all learning here!

Anyway, I'm going to link some people who understand this shit way better than I do, now.

Robert C. Tucker, [The Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition](http://sandiegodsa.org/Marx/karl-marx-friedrich-engels-the-marx-engels-reader.pdf) - I'm not a Marxist, but Marx kind of codified a lot of how communists discuss communism. His works are foundational to the modern movement, and while I believe we should move past a lot of his ideas (historical materialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat stage of revolution being two big ones) I think it's important to have a good understanding of Marx. This is a collection of his essays and ideas that’s pretty authoritative and a lot less overwhelming than, say, reading Capital, but I’d also recommend checking out the Communist Manifesto because it’s pretty short.

PhilosophyTube, [Mad Marx](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWF_0lkBhjY&list=PLvoAL-KSZ32f2WAqejJdLM2ByZWKpREt8) - Oh my fucking god Olly was a baby in this series. Anyway, I just linked you a dense-ass text so here's my favorite philosophy boy explaining a bit of the theory a lot more simply. It's not complete by any means, but it's a good start.

Petyr Kropotkin, [The Conquest of Bread](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread) - It’s the bread book! We love the bread book. This is a major foundational text of modern anarcho-communism. It introduces a lot of important concepts like how to skip from Marx's transitional dictatorship of the proletariat right to full, stateless communism. Seriously, whenever you can get to it, read the bread book.

Alexander Berkman, [The ABC of Anarchism](https://libcom.org/files/AlexanderBerkman-ABCofAnarchism.pdf) - Berkman was a contemporary and friend of Emma Goldman's, and he wrote this book to be a plain language guide to anarcho-communism that the working class could understand without having to take, like, a whole college course to gain the intellectual tools for their own liberation. A bit of writing that's a little less dense than Kropotkin.

ThoughtSlime, [Q&Anarchy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9_wxEzA41o&list=PL2NllTmgLDPs10puhaUTwbgVdy7q-QjAB) - One very good Canadian enby making anarchy real simple for ya. He's an anarcho-communist specifically and talks about anarchy from that perspective, so this is a pretty good primer on what that looks like from a person who's generally pretty funny and accessible to the average viewer. His channel isn't super flashy like other members of LeftTube's are, but he explains things well without leaning too heavily on jargon and sometimes he yells about superheroes or Garfield Eats and that makes me happy.

PhilosophyTube, [What Was Liberalism?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlLgvSduugI&list=PLvoAL-KSZ32e9ziASGC8ZWwrvV4fEXoRj) - Just as antifascists have to understand what fascism is and why it’s bad in order to fight it, anarchists and communists of all kinds need to understand what the political and economic system we’re currently living under is and why we want to change it. I know I keep linking this dude but before I watched this series I couldn’t wrap my head around what a neoliberal was. Watch it and don’t suffer in ignorance as I did.

**Union Stuff**

Since unions are an effective tool for making workers’ lives easier and I threw the idea of tenants unions around all willy-nilly in this fic, here’s some resources for unionizing your own workplace or neighborhood.

[The IWW](https://www.iww.org) \- Join the One Big Union! The IWW isn't the force it was a century ago, but it's still a fantastic resource and we're lucky it's still around. They provide resources and support for starting a union in your workplace, and if you join them they will help you with labor disputes even if your workplace isn't unionized or you're working under the table or illegally. To them, all labor deserves to be unionized.

[Tenants Union of Washington State: Know Your Rights](https://tenantsunion.org/rights) \- A guide to tenancy rights. Only applies to Washington State specifically, but hopefully you find it illuminating and it provides a good guide for finding out about tenants rights in your neck of the woods.

[Buffalo Class Action: Fight Your Landlord and Win](https://libcom.org/library/tenants-union-fight-your-landlord-win) \- A pamphlet about how to organize a tenants union. A good general guide, and has some good writing on why leftists hate landlords so damn much.

**Resources for Further Reading**

_More Theory, Literature, and Other Useful Collections of Information_

[The Anarchist Library](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index)

[The Anarchist Film Archive](https://christiebooks.co.uk/anarchist-film-archive/)

[The Anarchist Library's FAQ](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq)

[The Left Bank Books Volunteer Guide](https://www.leftbankbooks.com/docs/packet.pdf) \- Since I was writing about a fictional leftist bookstore, I thought you all might enjoy my local anarchist bookstore's volunteer packet. It has a great list of recommended reading on anarchism and all sorts of other social justice issues starting on page 5. Also, if you're ever in Seattle, they're in Pike Place Market and you should totally buy some books there.

And don't forget to check out your local library! Browse your library's catalog, and don't be afraid to ask your reference librarian for help.

_History Podcasts (Because That's a Thing I Enjoy Anyway So I Thought I'd Rec Stuff)_

[Revolutions](https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/) \- Host Mike Duncan is definitely a liberal, but I actually think that's to this podcast's benefit because he doesn't get bogged down in historical materialism and does his best to present an unbiased picture of what happened. Duncan is a smart and thorough historian who does a great job narrating the stories of history's most important revolutions and who isn't afraid to challenge the received wisdom on historical events when he thinks there's another way of looking at it. I'm not caught up yet but I'm excited to be because he's currently working his way through the Russian Revolution starting with the early history of communism in the mid-19th century. If it's anything like his fifty-five part series on the French Revolution, I have plenty of time to catch up to him! I will say it's pretty dry and appeals to me specifically because I'm a huge nerd, but if it sounds like your jam I adore it.

[Behind the Bastards](https://www.behindthebastards.com/) \- Robert Evans is a former Cracked writer and a journalist who's hung with everyone from Portland's Rose City Antifa, to Kurdish fighters battling ISIS, to Ukrainians resisting Russian invasion. He describes this podcast as a show about "the very worst people in all of history," which frankly is how I tend to study history so I feel very seen by it, and he does a good job breaking down historical fascist and racist movements using top notch research and journalism. Also, he always brings a comedian on cold to read the story to so the humor helps the very bad stories go down a little easier.

[The Dollop](http://thedollop.libsyn.com/) \- I'm still just getting to know this one, but they had a great episode on the IWW in Everett, WA and seem to cover a lot of good leftist topics. Similar format to Behind the Bastards with a comedian coming in cold, but way less depressing and they just kinda do whatever history topic they want.

That’s all I have for you for now. This is a whole lot and I'm sure if you tried to take it all in at once it would be overwhelming, but just poke through and dive into things as they pique your interest. Learning a new way of thinking about the world is a marathon, not a sprint. If you have a question you think I’ll be able to answer, please leave a comment or message me on Tumblr (I've linked it at the bottom of this chapter.) On or off anon is fine, personally I’d prefer IM so we can have a nice back and forth but whatever you’re comfortable with. I can’t guarantee I’ll have the answer, but at the very least we can try to work it out together.

And with that, I’d like to indulge my inner Jewish mother and leave you with a little nourishment before you go. After all, leftist activism isn’t just about changing the way we do work or government. It’s about building a society where it’s easy for people to be kind and caring to one another. In my research for this bibliography I came across Emma Goldman’s recipe for cheese blintzes, a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish breakfast I have a very nostalgic fondness for that’s basically crepes with a meat or sweet cheese filling. Goldman made this recipe for the people she loved, her comrades in the fight for a better world. I’m sharing this piece of her culture and mine with you now from that same place of love, because I can’t think of a better encapsulation of what revolution means to me.

**Ingredients**

3 eggs

1¾ cups flour

2 pounds or 4 cups of cheese, preferably pot cheese but Farmer’s cheese or dry cottage cheese may be more easily available

3 cups water

Butter

1 tablespoon sugar

**The Blattlach (Crepes)**

_They are the principal thing; they must be as fine as tissue paper. You beat up two eggs and add three cups of water, then add flour, sifted, to make the mixture as thin as you would for fannekuchen (pancakes), very, very thin. For best results, strain the batter through a sieve to remove lumps, then refrigerate, covered, for two hours. Then make your frying pan hot, wipe it thoroughly with butter, and pour in enough of the mixture to cover the pan thinly. Use about two tablespoons of batter, tilting the pan to coat the surface thinly and evenly. Then when it gets yellow, turn it over on a cloth. Make all your blätter (crepes) like this._

**The Filling**

_The cheese is prepared with an egg and sugar._

**Assemble and Fry**

_Small pieces of the cheese mixture are wrapped in the blätter. Then fry until brown._

[Source](https://libcom.org/library/emma-goldmans-cheese-blintz-recipe)

Enjoy it in good health, comrades. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at [crowleyraejepsen](https://crowleyraejepsen.tumblr.com)!


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